AoS Theorycrafting Balance Changes

Is he? His 'pinned down' rule IMO makes him pretty clearly a horde killing monster. His multiple 5 damage rend 1 attacks I think further reinforces that. That's not the same role as a "400 point elite killing beatstick."

Again, i'll ask - is he though? The general implication here seems to be that a beatstick monster has to be a 400 point elite killing beatstick monster or it isn't worth it. Where is that assertion coming from? You don't need to fight their monsters with your monsters. It simply doesnt need to happen. And shockingly, Carnosaurs actually can do decent damage into 3+ saves if you get Roar off.

The problem I keep hearing is that this monster doesn't match your perception of what it SHOULD do. In a world with 400 point elite killing beatstick monsters, a 200 point horde killing beatstick monster is still worth it and fills a different but equally important role. Why should the rules change to match your perception and not your perception change to match the rules?

A carnosaur is clearly not a monster hunter, nor does he need to be. Every beatstick monster doesnt need to be a copy paste of the mawkrusha. There's room in this game for monsters that are "worth it" at 200 points and ones that are at 400 or even 700.


I get it, everyone wants their toys to be stronger, faster, and better than everyone elses toys. Who doesnt? But lets not let our natural bias and wishlisting tendencies get in the way of the facts of the game right in front of us. Carnosaurs can fill a useful role without being a mawkrusha. Also, i'll go back to my previous post of that kind of addition to the seraphon book would fundamentally change what they are as an army.

Other armies like that already exist. You can play them if it's a playstyle you like or want to try out. Changing seraphon to be that army would majorly suck for everyone that likes the current playstyle, don't you think?

Edit: to bring this more on topic I'd love to see carnosaurs be more of a power multiplier for saurus based armies. I think you can do that within the flavor and theme of the seraphon playstyle. I'm not totally sure if just buffing all its raw stats is necessarily the way I'd go! Just my two cents.

 

@Putzfrau or anyone. Do you think that giving the Carno -2 Rend on jaw attacks, and reverting to some earlier version of Pinned Down (either affecting Monsters or perhaps any models with 7 Wounds or MORE), would make it feel more like a monster hunter? Would that radically affect the Seraphon playstyle?

EDIT:

Interesting. So, like a Saurus version of the Stegadon, where it buffs Saurus in some way? Re-rolling battleshock or maybe even something more aggressive like re-rolling hits?

 

I think giving it rend 2 would naturally bump the cost a little bit, but I think those changes would easily pivot it to a more "elite killer" role without just dumping a ton of extra stats on it (which is usually needed to be an elite/monster killer). It's hard to say for sure, just because you'd naturally want to test how bad that could get with exploding 6's, reroll 1s, 3 extra attacks, mortals on 6's to wound, etc, etc, etc. There's such a toolbox of buffs you can stack on anything, something pretty innocent like rend 2 could become quickly problematic.

Regardless, I DO think that there should be something with rend 2 in the army besides a salamander, and carno jaws seem like the place it makes the most sense. As a side note, I think ultimately the Carno suffers from just having super, super swingy damage. It's kind of the natural result of having so much of your output wrapped up into one low quantity, high damage attack.

Absolutely! Personally, I think of Saurus Warriors as a defensive unit and i've always been fond of something like BoC got with the herdstone update. Maybe when you use Rally on a saurus unit from an Saurus Hero on a Carnosaur, they rally on a 4+.

Or i've also always liked the idea of them having a thematic run and charge. Maybe the carno's blood frenzy applies to saurus models wholly within 12, instead of just itself.

I think either of those abilities could be applied to the Saurus on Oldblood almost without buffing it's points at all. Honestly, I just think the saurus heroes (especially the foot heroes) could use some interesting saurus buffs. Maybe they "mark" a target and Saurus units jaw attacks have an additional rend against that unit. Maybe they give saurus units an additional reinforcement. Maybe they make it so Saurus units can "consolidate" after combat or enemies can't retreat from them. Maybe they give saurus a spell ignore or don't test for battleshock at all. I think any of those things could be argued around some type of "frenzy" or "cold blooded hunter" or something like that.

I think all of those are dynamic, exciting rules that help the saurus side of the book, make sense thematically, and don't involve just sending everything's damage through the roof.


edit: Just wanted to clarify my "radically effect the seraphon playstyle" comments. That stuff is mostly directed at theorycraft suggestions that boil down to "lets make conditionally buffs, flat warscroll boosts... and lets also buff the damage, rend, and number of attacks on this unit, this unit, and this unit."

You can't give an army with hyper powerful warscrolls the level of support we have. And I don't think the game needs another army who's strength relies so heavily on the fundamental strength of its raw stats.

 

That's still a beatstick though, just specialized against a specific target. I'm fine with it being a horde-killer. But even against those a carnosaur isn't anything special.

Also, how do 5 damage rend 1 attacks reinforce horde killer? They'll do the exact same damage to a monster as to a horde. Or do you just mean that the low rend makes you think of an anti-horde cuz elite troops have ridiculous saves nowadays?

Anyway, my point was that either you compare him with 400 point beatsticks, which are just stronger, cuz they have more points. To 200-ish points demi-monster beatsticks, which are often more efficient, or at least appear to be since they can beat the carnosaur. Or to the 300-ish monsters with special abilities, who have an advantage over the carnosaur cuz they have special abilities (e.g. ranged attacks, mortal wounds, some supportive aura, whatever).

Regardless of what you compare it with it always ends up falling a bit short. It's stuck not really being any of them. If you want it to compete with the 400 point beatsticks it needs a statboost. If you want it to compete with the demi-monsters it needs a cost reduction, if you want it to compete with the stuff with special abilities it needs to get an actually usefull special ability...

I mean sure, if you can figure out a way how a giant t-rex fullfills a supporting power-multiplier type role. I don't think that'll be easy to make feel natural, but go ahead and try.

 

I just want to say I'm enjoying this conversation! I'll add more of my thoughts to it when I get home from work today

 

It's a low rend attack that hits better against low wound models. I'm not sure what about its kit makes you think it should be fighting monsters.

Then don't fight them with your carnosaur. It's clearly not a model intended to be fighting other monsters, hence the pinned down rule. Hence its plethora of no rend attacks.

I would struggle to name a 215 point monster that's better than a carnosaur.

I'd be interested in you trying to prove this point.

I provided plenty of examples in other comments that were here when you made this post. You can read them if you'd like.

I took a carnosaur to LVO and went 4-1, losing my last game. I mention that not to brag, but to show that in every single round I was playing against undefeated opponents. I fought giants, dragons, stormcast, fyreslayers and seraphon. At no point was the carnosaur lackluster. Anytime it failed, it was my failure. Whether it was the wrong target, the wrong activation or not giving it the correct buffs to make it do what i wanted.

Carnosaurs, simply put, are not bad. There are often just better options in a seraphon list. I've played them a lot into a ton of competitive lists. They are not in drastic need of a buff (in any way) unless your perception is they should be a 400 point monster-killing explosion of raw stats.

Well, it does have a special rule that specifically makes it hit better against low wound models. Feels like that kinda answers this specific question..

In case there was any question, i am indeed familiar with how damage works in Age of Sigmar. AoS roles, damage wise, are specialized just like in 40k. It's why Gavin's Living Cities list was so powerful. It has numerous types of damage to apply to the perfect targets.

Crossbows = High quantity of low rend low damage
Fulms = High rend high damage melee
Dragons = High mortal output

Seraphon have this same ability.

Bastiladon = medium quantity low rend medium damage
Salamander = low quantity high rend, high mortal + multi damage
Skinks = High quantity low rend/low damage + mortals
Carnosaur = Medium quantity low rend high damage

There are appropriate targets to put that type of damage into and there are inappropriate targets to put that type of damage into. It would seem like to me, you should be using your mortal wound output into the high armor monsters, and not the low rend, hitting on 4's with its best attack monster. It would seem like to me, a monster that has 8 rend 0 two damage attacks and a special ability that lets it hit better against low wound models, should probably be going into something that does indeed have a lower wound characteristic and a less than amazing save.

Sometimes the whole army is on a 3+. Carnosaurs aren't amazing in that matchup. Sometimes the whole army is zombies with no save. Carnosaurs are pretty good into that matchup.

edit: and just so we are really clear this is the unit we are talking about
215 points
14 wounds
10'' move
4+ save
Reduces damage by 1
~9 damage into a 3+ save with a single buff (asterism)

Looking at that and going "it should be more" is a perception problem, not a game balance problem.

For comparison, fulms (one of the most grossly undercosted units in the game)
230 points
12 wounds
10'' move
3+ save
MW breath (averages around 2 mortals)
~ 15.5 damage into a 3+ save with a single buff (+1 hit)

You're trading some damage for more wounds, monstrous actions, and being a hero. I'm not at any point saying carnosaurs are comparable to fulms. I'm just taking a unit thats universally revered and pointing out that with a carnosaur, it's not exactly the worst trade off in the world.

I genuinely think sometimes we get so stuck on certain narratives passed around these forums as fact, we never stop to collectively think and reassess those opinions as situations evolve and more experience is collectively gathered.

People thought the sky was falling after every nerf and we continue to perform well, we'll above the rest of the field.

At some point we may have to actually admit most things in the book are pretty good and any kind of conversation around theorycrafting balance changes needs to more appropriately contextualize buffs by pairing them with nerfs or making them extremely conditional.


FUN EDIT: A scar vet with Beastmaster, prime warbeast, asterism, hand of glory, starvenom, and exploding 6's does ~19 damage to a 3+ save. Pretty cool!!

 

Massive reply post incoming, please forgive me

Definitely agree on the Dread Saurian, lol! It's too bad that Forgeworld is such a separate entity despite being the same company. Their models aren't considered at all by the game writers and are basically never balanced. The Dread costs more than Gargants and is weaker in practically every respect, which is a shame. Maybe someday that will change.

I do like our synergies, to be sure. But even with synergies we still have about half the army that isn't considered very useful by the competitive playerbase because they either can't get most of our buffs (Kroxigors) or the buffs they can get just aren't as good as the buffs the "good" units can get, which is a big part of the whole "Skinks vs. Saurus" debate. Making a model tougher won't change the entire army or make synergistic playstyles invalid, especially if they remove a lot of our synergies, which is *very* likely given the 3e tomes we've got to go on so far.

Skinks and Saurus already play like two separate armies, especially since our book discourages mixing the two so much. If that were to change and we got more universal synergies, or even just better synergies for Saurus, I'd be totally fine with less warscroll buffs. Just like how Nurgle got a universal 5+ ward save now, rather than it just being for Daemons, making their entire army better as a result.

It's been said before but I really do agree that it's probably very hard for GW to balance an army that is essentially two different armies compiled into one book. Especially since all the units are pointed the same. It's like how Archaon was just ok in armies like Nurgle and Slaanesh, but terrifying in Tzeentch. The same warscroll but with different allegiance abilities can make a vast amount of difference

Exactly. The fact that it has a hard time taking on pretty much anything close to it's point cost that isn't a "fodder" unit is annoying. It doesn't mean the Carnos are useless or even bad, just that they don't match up well to most other factions' similar units.

True again. On the other hand, it is a *cheap* beatstick, and that is a plus no matter how you look at it. But it's still hard to fit into truly competitive lists because of the lack of special qualities you mentioned.

You're definitely correct. People, myself included, are definitely talking about what we think it should be, but isn't that the point of theorycrafting? I'll still enjoy playing Seraphon regardless. Just because I'm vocal about what I wish we could do, doesn't necessarily mean I'm unhappy with what we can do. But one thing I strongly believe is that with one of the widest model ranges in the game, I think we should also be an army with some of the most variety in playstyles and listbuilding. There are just too many different unit types available to us to all fit within one single theme or playstyle. We shouldn't be entirely comprised of "elite face smashers," for sure. But neither should we be all "inexpensive skirmishers."

I personally would rather a Carnosaur be a beatstick than a buff engine, mostly because I'd actually rather see our foot heroes fulfill the support role better. I certainly think there should be *some* benefit to nearby troops from a Carnosaur, but I do personally see them more as combatants than support.

People do seem to forget that Pinned Down used to be an anti-monster rule before GW changed it to an anti-horde rule, so clearly they can't decide whether the Carno is an elite-killer or a horde-killer, lol! But no, I don't think that making him slightly better at monster-killing vs. horde-killing would drastically change our playstyle, especially since we have so many good anti-horde options already.

I think this is one of the biggest base problems with that unit in particular. In AoS, reliability is better than potential. It's why Kroak isn't considered competitive despite his amazing potential, he's just not reliable anymore. A Carno can *theoretically* spike his rolls and one-shot a Maw-Krusha when buffed up, or he could fail to do any damage at all. Now, I know that's possible with literally anything since it is a dice game, but units with more probability of being reliable will always be better than ones with less. In my personal experience, I think I've only ever done a single point of damage with the Oldblood's gauntlet, for example. And this is after taking him in around a dozen games! In over half those games I've also whiffed most of or all of his jaw attacks (or the enemy just saves them all) and seen him crumble to a unit that he certainly could (and should) have killed if you're just comparing points.

Those are all awesome, and I agree that if we had better synergies available for Saurus we certainly wouldn't need them to get massively pumped up damage. I personally would just rather see those types of buffs delivered through the Saurus foot heroes, which right now have no role in the army whatsoever. At least the Carnosaur can do *something.* But while all the Skink foot heroes are amazing, the Saurus foot heroes suck. As I've said before I'm actually really hoping that they do get things similar to what you're describing. If we got that alongside *minor* Saurus Warrior buffs I think that side of the army would be vastly improved.

Since people keep bringing up the Maw-Krusha example, either as something they don't want the Carnosaur to match or something they do, I'll point out that the standard Maw-Krusha is 480 points, so he's actually closer to 500 than 400. And it can actually get synergies too, which practically guarantee that it will kill anything other than a max-sized horde unit in one turn, while still being very hard to get rid of. So really even if the Carnosaur was a 400 point beatstick he still wouldn't be as tough as a Maw-Krusha But I agree that the Carnosaur lacks a good nice outside of just being cheap.

We have monsters that all do a specialized thing much better than a Carnosaur, and often do multiple things better. AoS in general is a game where specialization is usually better than being average all-around. It's the problem the Troglodon has, but the Trog has it 100 times worse. He's a monster that can't do damage, can't survive combat, can't shoot, and can kind of do magic, but not nearly well enough to make him worth taking over a Slann or Starpriest, both of which have other things going for them that make them much better wizards.

The only thing the Carno (specifically the Scar-Vet) has going for him is that he's cheap. Which is not to be discounted, but it does kind of put him in a place of being a unit that you throw into a list because you don't have enough points for another Stegadon or Bastiladon and you'd rather have a monster than another unit of Skinks or Knights.

I'd contend that the Hellpit Abomination, Chimera, Gothizzar Harvester and Arachnarok Spider with War Party are all costed very close to the Carno and just from comparing raw stats *and* warscroll abilities perform at least as good, possibly better. It certainly doesn't make any of those armies OP.

Awesome! I'd definitely be curious to hear how you use the Carnosaur and how it specifically performed for you, if you have the time.

I agree, but the two aren't mutually exclusive. Just because people want something to be different, doesn't mean they can't see what it currently is. The Carnosaur is a cheap, moderately powerful melee beatstick hero. It can't kill similar monster or elite units in other armies without a ton of buffs and some luck, but it can clear screens and less elite units relatively well. It doesn't perform as well as our Skink monsters due to less synergies, fewer special abilities, and no shooting (the gauntlet doesn't count because it never does any damage ). But I think it's fine to talk about how you wish things were, because nothing would ever get better if everyone was always fine with how things are now.

What would you say about Ripperdactyls? Are people refusing to see them for what they are when they talk about what they think they should be? Carnosaurs certainly don't need as many changes as Ripperdactyls, which are an objectively terrible unit, but the comparison still stands. I don't think it's wrong for people to say "I don't like what this unit does, I wish it did something else instead." This is the nature of hobbies like this, especially as @Putzfrau said everyone wants their models to be good. Part of the reason people talk so much about it is because they want to use certain models and units that, for whatever reason, are either not as good as other units or just plain bad when compared to both other units in our army and other armies. Just because people want to be able to field an army of Saurus Warriors and Carnosaurs competitively, but can't do that, doesn't mean they think the army as a whole is terrible.

Fair points. I think that overreacting to nerfs is pretty common in gaming in general, but is more exacerbated in tabletop wargaming. To use the dreaded League of Legends example, when a character gets nerfed people may groan, but they'll ultimately just shrug and go pick another character to use. In Warhammer, when you spend so much money, time and effort purchasing, building, and painting that model, you want to be able to use it. But you also want to win, because winning feels good and winning with the units you like feels even better. So when the game rules say "don't use that unit if you want to win, use this one instead," people are going to complain about it a lot more than if it was just a nerf to a video game character.

And that's definitely the biggest reason you see so many people here talking about how they wish unit x was better, or unit y was different. Because at the end of the day a ton of people got into Seraphon not just because they liked lizards in general, but because they liked Saurus, or Carnosaurs, or Kroxigors, or Troglodons, or Rippers, or whatever unit types are underpowered or underused at the time. So the desire to play with what you like conflicts with the desire to play to win and creates tension

Everyone knows you can win with Seraphon, no one's arguing that you can't. But some people just really would like to be able to win with different units than the ones that are blatantly better. Obviously I'm not trying to say you can't win games with off-meta lists, but it's statistically harder to do so and most people who play more casually are going to be a lot more frustrated by that than someone who plays tournaments regularly.

I also don't think that just making more things good is a bad thing. If you made Saurus good, you shouldn't have to feel like you have to nerf Skinks in response. I do get that armies should have strengths and weaknesses, but I also really think that when you have so many different models it's really not fair to just arbitrarily declare that one unit is going to be good, so another needs to be bad to make up for it.

You're still limited in what you can take. You can't bring every single unit in the army in any list, so you still have to pick and choose what combos you want to bring. And even if you took as many different unit types as possible, the way AoS encourages spamming over mixed lists you wouldn't end up with a broken list. Because again, AoS rewards specialization over generalization most of the time. So you'd still be seeing people bring lists that were mostly Skinks, dinosaurs, hunting packs, etc. All you're doing by making Saurus good is adding another list type that is viable, you're not breaking the army as a whole. And if you're arguing that some parts of the army *should* be bad, I just can't agree with you on that point. Because literally what is the point of having a physical model in the game if it's going to be made deliberately bad to use in the game?

Each unit in an army needs to have a clearly defined role that it fills, or maybe two roles at most. And when one unit in an army is just objectively better at filling all the roles that another unit in the same army is designed for, that's just bad game design. There should be different reasons why a unit is good when compared to another one, for sure. Saurus Warriors should be tougher and stronger than Clanrats, for obvious reasons. But the advantage of Clanrats is supposed to be that they're taken in much greater numbers. So while 30 Saurus should be able to beat 30 Clanrats, 60 Clanrats should be able to match them.

Now for some other points:

We know that we have a good army, but we also know that changes will be coming at some point, and just judging by the current 3e writing trends it's *very* likely that we lose a lot of the synergies and buffs we currently rely on. I'm not being Mr doom and gloom and saying that means we'll end up with a bad army. So far all the 3e books have been very strong. So I don't think that theorycrafting is pointless or short-sighted at all. We know that things will change eventually, so what's the harm in wishlisting and theorizing about what those changes could be?

One thing I haven't seen people bring up is the fact that we have *two* different Carnosaur units. Just because the Scar-Vet is the better unit right now, doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk like it's the only Carno we have. (Again, what is vs. what could/should be). One thing I would think would be really cool would be to have different roles for the two different units, rather than just the Scar-Vet being the "better Carnosaur" just because of point costs.

I think both of them should be beatstick units primarily, with some buff for allied unit similarly to the Sludgeraker Swampbeasts. But I'd like it if the Oldblood was more geared towards hero and monster-killing while the Scar-Vet was more focused on either horde-killing or buffs. I wouldn't make them 4-500 point units, but I would put them closer to the 300-350 point range.

For the Troglodon, I'd take a look at what CA did in Total Warhammer and make him better at shooting. Make him a wizard and artillery monster that still doesn't want to charge right into melee, but can dish out some mortals at range similar to Salamanders. Having a Salamander-level attack with his poison spit would actually make him worth his current point cost, imo.

For Ripperdactyls, make the toad not a once-per battle thing. Perhaps rather than marking a unit, you just place the token and it marks everything in a short range, and it stays there for the rest of the battle. You could even have the Chief get an ability to redeploy the toad, making him a lot more useful for buffing Rippers. Since they're flyers, maybe the Chief can also give them the ability to retreat and then charge, to simulate the hit and run fighting style.

Terradons should be able to drop their rocks once per turn *or* get better shooting. I think it would be cool if they also had an ability to retreat when charged to avoid getting into melee if at all possible. Make them similar to Windchargers in that regard. Perhaps give the Chief an ability to make them able to retreat and shoot.

All our flyers need some sort of improved coherency rule. They're basically giving it to all bigger flyers (Idoneth are getting it for sharks in their new tome), and while our bases aren't that big our models are really hard to keep stuck next to each other all the time.

Razordons need some sort of niche to make them different from Salamanders but as good or better in different situations. I think I mentioned before just giving them less random attacks and no attack loss on overwatch would make them worth using in a lot of lists.

I think that most of us are on the same page when it comes to foot heroes. They could be amazing support pieces that buff our infantry/battleline units primarily, but in a way that makes them actually worth taking. And with so many Saurus foot heroes available, that along could go a long way towards "fixing" Saurus Warriors.

Warriors themselves need... something. Whether that be more damage, more synergies, more movement, etc. I really can't say, because I actually think there's quite a few different ways GW could make them viable again. Right now their only role is a pretty mediocre anvil, and there's very little that makes them distinct enough to be worth taking over a horde of Skinks who have just as many wounds but better damage output.

Thanks for reading my ramblings, sorry for the massive post.

 

All it has is the +1 to hit, low rend is not something that makes it specifically anti-horde, it just means it struggles with good saves, regardless of the target being a horde or not.

Also, I'm not saying it should fight monsters. Again, I'm fine with it being specialized into being an anti-horde thing (in principle at least)
I'm saying that even as an anti-horde beatstick it is rather underwhelming. Hell, we have three units just in our own faction that have more dedicated anti-horde bonusses (stegadon, Kroak & kroxigor) than this minor buff the carnosaur gets.

Your big fancy dedicated "anti-horde" monster gets a +1 to hit on one specific attack against low wound models. Congratulations, about 1% of the units entire power budget is dedicated against a specific type of enemy, clearly it could not possibly specialize any more than this.

Yes and no.
What you describe is simply how to avoid overkill by assigning your attacks efficiently. And while yes, this should in theory result in specialization it only works if there would be significant overkill. But due to how AoS works, significant overkill is a rare occurance in practise.

And while yes, this is part of specialization it is only the most shallow part because ultimatly, when it comes down to it, the "wasted" potential is very limited. For example, a carnosaur will do slightly more damage to a horde of 30 one wound models with a 4+ save than against 1 model with 30 wounds and a 4+ save, but the difference is going to be relativly minor.

In contrast in 40K, if you use a 5-damage attack against a 1 wound unit you'll be wasting 80% of your damage, even if it has 5 (or more) models.
That is the level of waste you need to really start seeing proper specialization. And you don't have that kind of specialization in AoS. The only thing you have is that your attacks are technically slightly more efficient against particular targets, a re-roll here, a +1 to hit there, and the relativly small optimizations you can make by pitting your high rend/mortal wounds against high saves and your low rend attacks against low save targets as much as possible (and even then that may not be optimal if the low-save targets are a priority for some reason, e.g. taking out the low-save support character can be very important). But it's not like you're suddenly going to waste half or more of your damage potential by picking the wrong type of target in 99% of all scenarios in AoS. The only exception to this are stuff like the stegadon's flamers, those are the only properly specialized weapons in AoS where shooting at the wrong target is actually a waste.

It may not be the worst trade off in the world, but it also is rarely a particularly good one. And I feel like that's kind of the main issue most people have with the carnosaur. There's very few fair match-up where you go "yes I definitly want the carnosaur". Especially as the carnosaur has very little in the form of special rules, which often makes the other options look better (no breath attack, no trampling on charges, no decent ranged attack, no ward-save, etc.)

Also, it does not help that we have both the oldblood & scar-vet. The scar-vet is at least vaguely decent. The oldblood is just kind of terrible. But the difference between the two is so very very minor (outside of pointcosts) that they're often viewed as one unit which makes conversations about them rather confusing.

 

hmmm . would you all be interested if i host a debate on the subject? we would get canas and kilvakar on one side and putz and one more of his choice(we don't have any one else defending the carnasuar in this thread) on the other.

 

For clarity, the scar-vet variant I find a lot more reasonable-ish in terms of balance. The issue the scar-vet variant has is mostly that it constantly gets outshone by its competition, both on the high-end by the proper monsters, as on the low-end by the demi-monsters. To the point where half the time I'm forgetting the scar-vet even even exists cuz it's just such a bland middle of the road unit that struggles to stand out in any meaningfull way from any of it's competition. It's that it's low cost enough to be vaguely efficient, but that's about the only truly positive thing you can say about it.

The oldblood on the other hand is just outright bad.

And combined the two variants make carnosaurs a dissapointment.

Edit: to put it into perspective; It's that a troglodon is massivly overcosted, but I'd almost prefer to have a troglodon over a scar-vet. At least the troglodon fills some interesting niche with its special abilities and it's theoretical advantages compared to other (demi-)monsters are at clear. I can point towards it's spellcasts, the interaction with slanns, it's healing and it's ranged attacks as abilities with potential. In contrast the choice to bring a scar vet on carnosaur just kinda boils down to "meh, I guess it will do some damage and is vaguely efficient?"

 

@Erta Wanderer I think that would be fun. I certainly don't want to argue with anyone, but a conversation about our army balance and our weak vs strong units and how they could be improved for 3e would be interesting to have, for sure. It's been a while since we heard from the Wandering Lizard Wizards

 

not an argument a debate with full on competition rules. statement question rebuttal.

 

I think we just have to be careful about what we mean when we say "competitive." That's a very narrow window on what makes or does not make a unit useful. Balance in this game is better than it's ever been, but its still not great. Every book struggles from this problem to a degree, and while we struggle from it less, i'd never argue that every single unit in our army is as competitive as the next.

However, for a vast, vast majority of use cases, you should be able to make an army of just about anything you want in seraphon and perform well with it. Saurus based armies, while not as competitive maybe as your more standard builds, can and will win games. They will be more than fine in games against friends or mates at the club. I literally use saurus based lists in a majority of my non tournament games.

I agree that seraphon could (and should) benefit from more universal synergies and not be so "a book of two halves." I don't think that makes our synergistic playstyle invalid. I think having overly bloated warscrolls, similar to the Stormdrakes (which originally started this conversation) will.

I'd argue it's hard to fit into truly competitive lists because seraphon simply has more efficient options. We are flush with choice, so naturally some fall off.

And let me be perfectly clear, it doesnt need to fight "fodder" units. I simply do not understand this fascination with pushing my 200 point monster into your 200 point monster. That's just not the way you play the game! It can easily fight its point cost in lots and lots of units... you just have to know what you're getting into. For example, in my last post i showed that a Carnosaur can do nearly 20 damage on average into a 3+ save with the appropriate buffs. That's... not nothing.

I'm not saying you should exclusively fight hordes with it. I'm saying its kit makes it naturally a little better against sub 7 wound models with a 4+ save... but i'm regularly getting it into combat with all sorts of things. You just need to invest the resources in it (which seraphon have) to get your desired result.

We do have variety in playstyles and listbuilding. We have literally the most variety in competitive playstyles and listbuilding of any army. We are the only army that's gone 5-0 with every subfaction. There is no army in age of sigmar with more variety in playstyles and listbuilding then seraphon.

It feels like we are already solving the problem you are putting out there.

You can give a nice buff and still be a beatstick. Turtles, give a great buff and still do damage. Was also just an off the cuff suggestion. Carnos already are a beatstick and i think buffing raw stats is boring af so i gave, in my opinion, more interesting ways to buff a model then "what if everything was a fulminator."

We have good elite killers already too. Mortal wounds. We do more mortal wounds than almost any other army. I don't think it would drastically change our playstyle if you changed pinned down, but putting a mawkrusha into seraphon absolutely would. You can't have a mawkrusha level model in an army that has the level of access to buffs that we have. Something would have to change.

Carnosaurs are definitely spikey in the damage department. I dont mind having a unit like that in my games because usually it means my opponents over or under invest when thinking about it. It's either ignorable and they're leave something exposed they shouldnt, or its scary and they play safer and cagier then they should.

Mawkrusha's have, quite literally, 2 buffs they have access to. +1 damage and a +1 wound spell. That's not even within the same realm as the synergies and buffs seraphon units have access too.

People keep saying this and I keep pointing out how its not really the case and everyone just sorta glosses over that. Carno's aren't good just because they are cheap. They can do a ton of damage under the right circumstances, and are extremely EFFICIENT for what you get. Horrors are good because they are cheap wounds, and nothing more. A carnosaur is more than just cheap wounds.

If you're "throwing him in a list" because you have nothing better to spend points on, you aren't taking advantage of everything it brings to the army. I literally made a list with him and took it to the biggest GT in america and did well with him. He wasn't in the list because "i didn't have enough points for a bastiladon."

And honestly, it's this kind of hyperbolic language that makes these conversations so difficult. This shit is more nuanced than that.

A hellpit is a weird one because of its random move. Random move sort of changes the equation a lot, because a monster that's moving 2 inches is terrible. One that's moving 12'' is great. But that's really the only one in the list that even approaches a carnosaur from a damage perspective and its not close to as tough. It's also more expensive. They all are except the harvester, which is the only one that even remotely approaches a carnosaur's overall usefulness and its 100% because of its ability.

Carnosaur is tougher and does more damage than everything there, by a lot. This is why i question the judgement of the carnosaur. I'm still waiting for someone to provide a monster hero that is as tough and as damaging as a carno. For a hero who's only benefit is that it's "cheap" it seems to hold up pretty well in comparison.

DM me.

Then that conversation should have the appropriate context. Carnosaurs don't need to "get better" unless you actually don't like what they currently do. Which is why i've tried to make it clear that my problem is with A) calling them bad and B) acting like the only solution is just to ton a bunch of boring stat buffs on them.

Rippers are a unit that only has its "cheapness" going for it. And in a book with skinks, being a cheap, high movement unit just isn't enough. If you put rippers into most other armies they'd see a ton of play.

I have no problem with people wishlisting. I just think, as i mentioned above, it should have appropriate context.

People should be able to play whatever they want and win with whatever they want. Every army suffers from this problem. You can win with saurus, and if you aren't its a tactical problem, not an army problem. GT's have been won with saurus. Tavi (dunno if he's still around) is currently doing really well with a unit of 6 krox in his thunder lizard list.

Sometimes it feels like people would rather wishlist their stuff into OP land rather than actual use what they want and get better using what they want.

This idea you can't win with what you want is not true. Gavin went 5-0 at Lone Star with Kragnos and Squig herders. Is it sometimes harder? Are certain matchups borderline impossible? Sure. But i'm assuming we aren't talking about someone actually trying to 5-0 a GT. We're talking about someone playing pickup games at their local store. Or someone who's at best going 3-2 at a tournament anyways, something Saurus are completely capable of.

You can, should, and will win with just about any seraphon list you want in a casual environment.

People said you couldn't win with a dread saurian and it went 4-1 at da boyz.
Couldn't win with koatls claw and several 4-1's and a GT win later it looks like you can.
Can't win with an ark of sotek, and look at that, there it is in a GT winning list.

If these lists and models are going 4-1 and 5-0 at GTs, then they are certainly capable of winning games against friends in a basement.

Armies should have strengths and weaknesses in the strategies they can employ on the table, not in their literal model range. I don't think models should be intentional weaker. I think, like most things, context is really important. You can't just pick up a unit like stormdrakes and dump it into a seraphon army and expect nothing to change. You can't turn saurus into chaos warriors and expect nothing to change. These armies have their own strengths, weaknesses and unique wrinkles that drastically effect how the same statline will be received in two different armies.

I think a lot of your suggestions on other units are total fair in a vacuum. There are small, obvious changes that could be made to Troglodons, our flyers, saurus foot heroes, and warriors that would instantly make them more appealing. I dont disagree with any of that. I disagree with any suggestion that basically comes down to "our 200 points of this doesnt beat 200 points of this so it should be buffed."

That's just not indicative of how the game is played or the advantages different armies inherently have built into their playstyles.

Agreed. And to reply to your point on damage, I think there's more to specialization of damage than S/T and damage spillover. But i feel like that argument is over a matter of degrees i'm happy agreeing to disagree on.

Feels like kind of a shitty way to respond, but whatever. It's about target priority and maximizing the impact of your damage, something that should be fairly obvious. Damage spillover isn't the end all be all of smart target priority. It's why you don't shoot a stardrake with a bastiladon but you might with a salamander. It's why your crossbows are going to be shooting the zombies while your fulminators attack the vengorian lord (or whatever).

Or, it's why your carnosaur is obliterating units of horrors while your bastiladon shoots the heroes.

For the other point, you haven't really defended that the carnosaur actually is underwhelming in any context. I'll reply to this assertion when you do.

 

Interesting discussions. If our buffs crossed over do you guys think it would "unbalance" our army?

What would Saurus look like if they could run and charge (no shooting), with +1 save and +1 to hit, from the priest, plus any of the Saurus buffs?

What would 30 Skinks look like if they had exploding 6s to hit, with +1 wound from the Sunblood, plus all of the common Skink buffs?

 

I think it would unbalance the army towards skinks even more. Exploding 6's and +1 wound would be a savage upgrade.

I think Saurus can absolutely be strong in seraphon without unbalancing the army. I do think their strength should come at the expense of SOME of the skink strength. Like I just straight up think the skink priest sunstone staff ability should be saurus only. Or on a different model and be saurus only.

I don't want anyone to think my argument is "you can't buff saurus without causing problems." But I do think that when you're buffing units in an already powerful army, even if those units are underused, There should be careful consideration in how it impacts the larger picture.

Giving an army with extremely powerful magic and shooting, also extremely powerful melee units is something that COULD be problematic if a thoughtful touch isn't taken.

 

My apologies for the sarcasm, I just find it kind of funny to claim the Carnosaur is dedicated anti-horde unit when all he gets is a +1 to hit on one of his

As for target priority, yes this is complicated, but in AoS this simply isn't dictated by your weapons as much as it is by the situation on the battlefield. Your crossbows are just as happy shooting at the lord, and your fulminators won't struggle with killing those zombies. Sure it might be more efficient the other way around, but they'll both damage the "wrong" target more or less as effectivly as the "right" target. It's not like 40K, where shooting an anti tank weapon at the wrong target easily wastes 80% of it's potential damage per shot.

Like I've said before:

It doesn't have high rend or mortal wounds like dracoths & drakeguard to deal with high saves.
It doesn't have high defenses, healing or ward-saves like more defensive focused monsters (e.g. bastiladon)
It doesn't have a decent ranged attack to play artillery like bastiladons or even stegadons.
It doesn't have good support abilities like an EoTG.
It doesn't have the raw stats of a proper big monster like a maw-krusha
It doesn't have specialised rules making it good against a specific type of target (a single +1 to hit on one single attack is nowhere enough to call it specialized)
It doesn't have unique utility in the form of unique special rules (e.g. the EoTG summoning is unique, a Troglodons interaction with a Slann is unique)
It doesn't even bring signficantly better offense/defense than a good chunk of demi-monster units

All it has going for it is that it's not terrible for its point-cost in the case of the scar-vet variant. Which isn't exactly a particularly impressive "niche" to fill, if you can even call that a niche. And the oldblood variant doesn't even have that going for it as it's significantly more expensive for some reason despite the minute differences.

How is that not underwhelming? What does it bring that actually gives it a potential niche for itself?

Saurus suddenly become a lot more viable, but skinks will probably remain on top. I'd suspect the saurus heroes don't add enough to really change skink lists, but it could just as easily result in some overpowered broken nonsense.

 

i think this is what they mean when they say specialized @Putzfrau




this would be a specialized anti horde attack. with the carnasuar you loose 16% damage on the attack when swinging into a monster(and not even that if you all out.) while this weapon looses 50% if he hits a 5 man 70% if he hits a 3 man and 90% if he swings into a hero.